I get out my pocket knife, hold it under the flame, and make a small cut on the tip of my left thumb. Then I push it onto my ring on the opposite hand, where the Lozhkin sigil gleams.
I press the sigil to the recruit’s forehead. “I accept you as my brother in arms,” I recite.
“Spasibo, pakhan.”
“Vstavat’.”
He obeys my command and rises.
Recruit after recruit kneels before me. I search Mia’s gaze in the crowd to see her reaction. This isn’t a particularly violent ceremony, but it’s still intrinsically Bratva. Will she approve? Or will she be disgusted by the man she’s about to marry?
But when I meet her blue eyes at the front of the crowd, it’s not disgust I see.
She’s smiling. No, not just that—she’sbeaming.
With pride. For me.
I know, at that moment, I will never love anyone as much as her.
The last recruit receives his mark. As he blends back into the rest of my men, who welcome him with claps on the shoulders and open arms, I straighten myself on the stage.
Then I gesture for Mia to join me.
She hesitates, but takes my outstretched hand after a heartbeat. “Am I getting marked, too?” she jokes.
“Not unless you want to.”
“I mean, it feels a little unsanitary, but?—”
I silence her with a kiss.
That’s it. That’s our announcement.
When she parts from me, breathless and surprised, I address the crowd. “You have all heard of my engagement,” I say. “But you’ve all thought it was business. That it was the CEO of StarTech Industries who was getting married.” I take Mia’s hand in mine. “Tonight, I’m here to tell you that’s not the case.”
She draws herself up towards me. I haven’t told her to do it, but she knows. She understands how important it is to project strength.
“Next week, you’ll have a newpakhansha,” I rumble. “Mia Winters. My fiancée—and soon to be my wife.”
Then I take out the ring.
It’s not the most romantic proposal in the universe. It’s a rite—a tradition.
But Mia still looks like the happiest woman in the world.
She drinks in the sight of the ring in my hand. A flawless, round-cut diamond, easily five carats, sits on a platinum band lined with smaller stones.
My mother’s ring. The only thing they could salvage from her.
Mia offers her hand, eyes wide and shiny with tears. Her smile is watery, wobbly, but certain. It makes that old muscle in my chest flare back to life, start pumping blood again, after twenty years of dormancy.
I slide the ring onto her finger.
And then it’s done. We’re engaged. Officially.
Just in time for the gunshots to ring out.
62
